A year on the run
In a nutshell
Ultrarunner Damian Hall offers one story from running history for every day of the year: records, races, births and legends such as Zátopek or Karnazes. One minute a day and in a year you've read it all, with beautiful illustrations on top.
Who it's for: Anyone short on reading time who wants a tour through running history.
No time to read? Why not try this book? “A Year on the Run”, for example. One minute a day is enough; repeat it 365 times and in a year you’ve read it all. Really! The book offers an interesting story for every day of the year. What happened in the running world on this very day a year ago, or ten, or a hundred and twenty, or…
Damian Hall (born 1976) is a British long-distance runner who has linked his name with the Inov-8 brand. He ran his first half marathon only at 35, a marathon a year later and an ultramarathon the year after that. Four years of hard graft got him into the UK team for the Trail World Championships. Year after year he moved further up the elite ultrarunning rankings. You can see his progress in his finishes at UTMB, the 168 km race around Mont Blanc. First he was 39th, then 19th, then 12th and most recently fifth.
Many ultrarunners see UTMB as their dream and ultimate goal. Not Damian. Between 2016 and 2020 he focused on his personal challenges. Just as Scott Jurek set out to set a Fastest Known Time on the Appalachian Trail (he wrote about it in North), Damian found his own routes in the UK. Well, his own… these trails have long traditions and many of the fastest times stand for years.
He rewrote the FKT on the Paddy Buckley Round in 2019 and set the winter record in 2020. He also holds the record on the longest British trail, the South West Coast Path (1,008 km), and others. Only the best known one, the Bob Graham Round, was snatched from him by Kilian Jornet.
But back to the book. He wrote it in 2016, when his greatest sporting successes were still ahead of him. As I said, it’s not a book with a single story. For every day of the year Damian chose one event that shouldn’t be forgotten. On the day I wrote this review, for example, it was the Jerusalem Marathon, first run in 2011 (see the sample from the book). The stories are set in the 19th to 21st centuries. The exception is 1 March 490 BC. Pheidippides.
So what will you read about? The Barkley Marathons, the day Paul Tergat finally beat Haile Gebrselassie, the day Paula Radcliffe set the marathon world record, Emil Zátopek several times, the first ultra race, a run around the world, Dean Karnazes and his 50 marathons in 50 days…
There are so many books that I often choose the Kindle e-book. With this one I made an exception. Why? It has beautiful illustrations painted by Daniel Seex. And on top of that, he lives in Edinburgh, where it rained whisky on us.
There really are a lot of days in a year. So many entries are devoted to births and deaths or to specific records set at the time. The selection is certainly subjective. If someone else had put the book together, we would surely be reading something different. Still, I can really recommend it. The trip into history is well worth it.
